Have a nice day. How many times a week do you hear those words spoken? Five, 10, maybe 15 times?

And how often do you actually have a nice day, or better still a perfect day? Which of course is a subjective thing. You know, “One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.”

Well the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council; which is an agricultural promotion group made up of blueberry farmers, processors and importers commissioned a survey to find the answer to that question.

If you’re wondering why they did this the answer can be found later in this column.

Some 2,000 American adults were asked what constitutes a perfect day and for the average person it would mean waking up at 8:15 to a sunny spring day with a high of about 24 Celsius. I’m good with that but maybe more like 9 or 10:15. Don’t want to fall asleep before Lisa LaFlamme’s 11:00 newscast.

This average person’s perfect day would include spending four hours with the family, three with friends followed by three hours of television and in bed by 10:50 that evening. Funny but there’s no mention of breakfast, lunch or dinner and again if I went to sleep at 10:50 pm I’d be denied my daily dose of LaFlamme. And Kimmel, Colbert ET all.

So how many perfect days did the average person feel they experienced per year? Apparently 204 good days but only 15 perfect ones. That’s about one every 24 days…I think. (Bad with numbers). Once a month that’s average perfect day cycle.

They also questioned people about something they call “mood boosters,” those things that put a smile on your face.

The top three responses were finding money in your pocket; (58%) money I guess you didn’t know was there, sleeping in without waking up to an alarm, (55%) and lying in bed listening to the rain (51%).

But if I’m lying in bed listening to the rain I’m missing my golf game. But then again that would save me money which is kind of like finding money in my pocket. What would be even better would be listening to the rain in my bed where I just found some money in my pajamas.

Other boosters include your first sip of coffee of the day (41%), walking into an air conditioning building on a hot day (40%) and 40% also said baked treats. Then in brackets they’ve written i.e. blueberry pie. See I told you the answer to the, “Why is the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council doing this survey?” would be found later in this column.

Now for some reason hair can make you feel good. Getting a hair cut works for 30% of those polled and 23% said that realizing you’re going to have a good hair day is a mood booster. How do you know what you’re hair is going to look like later in the day, unless you emptied a can of hairspray on it and turned it into a helmet.

And 24% believe a nice glass of wine or beer after a long day will boost your mood. I agree in fact I think I’ll crack a cold booster right now. Cheers.

This Week's Flyers

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.